Orpheus Over and Over and Over Again

Legendary musician, poet, and prophet in Greek mythology

Orpheus
Roman Orpheus mosaic, a very common bailiwick. He wears a Phrygian cap and is surrounded past the animals charmed past lyre-playing
Abode	Pimpleia, Pieria
Symbol	Lyre
Personal information
Built-in	Pimpleia, Pieria
Died	Pangaion Hills, Republic of macedonia
Parents	Oeagrus or Apollo and Calliope
Siblings	The Graces, Linus of Thrace
Spouse	Eurydice or Agriope
Children	Musaeus

Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: [or.pʰeú̯s]) is a legendary musician and prophet in ancient Greek religion. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Gold Fleece, and fifty-fifty descended into the Underworld of Hades to recover his lost wife Eurydice.^[1]

Ancient Greek authors equally Strabo and Plutarch note Orpheus'due south Thracian origins.^{[2] [3] [4]} The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music (the usual scene in Orpheus mosaics), his attempt to recollect his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his expiry at the hands of the maenads of Dionysus, who tired of his mourning for his tardily wife Eurydice. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is 1 of the most meaning figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, motion-picture show, opera, music, and painting.^[five]

For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called "Orphic" mysteries.^[half-dozen] He was credited with the composition of the Orphic Hymns and the Orphic Argonautica. Shrines containing purported relics of Orpheus were regarded as oracles.

Etymology [edit]

Several etymologies for the proper name Orpheus have been proposed. A probable proffer is that it is derived from a hypothetical PIE root *h₃órbʰos 'orphan, servant, slave' and ultimately the verb root *h₃erbʰ- 'to change allegiance, condition, buying.'^[seven] Cognates could include Greek: ὄρφνη ( órphnē ; 'darkness')^[viii] and ὀρφανός ( orphanós ; 'fatherless, orphan')^[9] from which comes English 'orphan' past fashion of Latin.

Fulgentius, a mythographer of the late 5th to early on 6th century Advertizement, gave the unlikely etymology meaning "best voice," "Oraia-phonos".^[ten]

Background [edit]

It was believed by Aristotle that Orpheus never existed, just to all other ancient writers he was a real person, though living in remote artifact. About of them believed that he lived several generations before Homer.^[xi] The primeval literary reference to Orpheus is a two-word fragment of the 6th century BC lyric poet Ibycus: onomaklyton Orphēn ('Orpheus famous-of-name'). He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod.^[12] Most ancient sources accept his historical existence; Aristotle is an exception.^{[13] [xiv]} Pindar calls Orpheus 'the father of songs'^[15] and identifies him as a son of the Thracian king Oeagrus^[xvi] and the Muse Calliope.^[17]

Greeks of the Classical age venerated Orpheus every bit the greatest of all poets and musicians; it was said that while Hermes had invented the lyre, Orpheus had perfected information technology. Poets such every bit Simonides of Ceos said that Orpheus's music and singing could charm the birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance,^[nineteen] and divert the class of rivers.

Orpheus was ane of the handful of Greek heroes^[xx] to visit the Underworld and return; his music and song even had power over Hades. The earliest known reference to this descent to the underworld is the painting by Polygnotus (5th century BC) described by Pausanias (2nd century AD), where no mention is made of Eurydice. Euripides and Plato both refer to the story of his descent to recover his wife, but do not mention her name; a contemporary relief (about 400 BC) shows Orpheus and his wife with Hermes. The elegiac poet Hermesianax called her Agriope; and the first mention of her name in literature is in the Lament for Bion (1st century BC)^[11]

Some sources credit Orpheus with further gifts to mankind: medicine, which is more than usually under the auspices of Asclepius (Aesculapius) or Apollo; writing,^[21] which is commonly credited to Cadmus; and agriculture, where Orpheus assumes the Eleusinian role of Triptolemus as giver of Demeter'southward cognition to mankind. Orpheus was an augur and seer; he skilful magical arts and astrology, founded cults to Apollo and Dionysus^[22] and prescribed the mystery rites preserved in Orphic texts. Pindar and Apollonius of Rhodes^[23] identify Orpheus every bit the harpist and companion of Jason and the Argonauts. Orpheus had a brother named Linus, who went to Thebes and became a Theban.^[24] He is claimed by Aristophanes and Horace to have taught cannibals to subsist on fruit, and to take made lions and tigers obedient to him. Horace believed, however, that Orpheus had only introduced order and culture to savages.^[25]

Strabo (64 BC – c. Advertizing 24) presents Orpheus as a mortal, who lived and died in a hamlet shut to Olympus.^[26] "Some, of grade, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him." He fabricated money equally a musician and "magician" – Strabo uses αγυρτεύοντα ( agurteúonta ),^[27] also used by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus to characterize Tiresias as a trickster with an excessive desire for possessions. Αγύρτης ( agúrtēs ) most often meant adventurer^[28] and always had a negative connotation. Pausanias writes of an unnamed Egyptian who considered Orpheus a μάγευσε ( mágeuse ), i. e., wizard.^{[29] [ non-main source needed ]}

"Orpheus...is repeatedly referred to by Euripides, in whom we find the beginning innuendo to the connection of Orpheus with Dionysus and the infernal regions: he speaks of him as related to the Muses (Rhesus 944, 946); mentions the power of his song over rocks, trees, and wild beasts (Medea 543, Iphigenia in Aulis 1211, Bacchae 561, and a jocular allusion in Cyclops 646); refers to his charming the infernal powers (Alcestis 357); connects him with Bacchanalian orgies (Hippolytus 953); ascribes to him the origin of sacred mysteries (Rhesus 943), and places the scene of his action amid the forests of Olympus (Bacchae 561.)"^[30] "Euripides [also] brought Orpheus into his play Hypsipyle, which dealt with the Lemnian episode of the Argonautic voyage; Orpheus in that location acts as coxswain, and after every bit guardian in Thrace of Jason's children by Hypsipyle."^[11]

"He is mentioned once only, just in an important passage, by Aristophanes (Frogs 1032), who enumerates, equally the oldest poets, Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, and Homer, and makes Orpheus the teacher of religious initiations and of forbearance from murder..."^[30]

"Plato (Apology, Protagoras),...frequently refers to Orpheus, his followers, and his works. He calls him the son of Oeagrus (Symposium), mentions him as a musician and inventor (Ion and Laws bk iii.), refers to the miraculous ability of his lyre (Protagoras), and gives a singular version of the story of his descent into Hades: the gods, he says, imposed upon the poet, past showing him only a phantasm of his lost married woman, because he had not the courage to die, like Alcestis, simply contrived to enter Hades alive, and, equally a further punishment for his cowardice, he met his expiry at the hands of women (Symposium.)"^[30]

"Before than the literary references is a sculptured representation of Orpheus with the transport Argo, establish at Delphi, said to be of the 6th century BC."^[11]

Four other people are traditionally called Orpheus: "The second Orpheus was an Arcadian, or, according to others, a Ciconian, from the Thracian Bisaltia, and is said to exist more ancient than Homer and the Trojan War. He composed fabled figments called mythpoeai and epigrams. The 3rd Orpheus was of Odrysius, a city of Thrace, near the river Hebrus; but Dionysius in Suidas denies his existence. The fourth Orpheus was of Crotonia; flourished in the fourth dimension of Pisistratus, well-nigh the fiftieth Olympiad, and is, I have no incertitude, the aforementioned with Onomacritus, who changed the dialect of these hymns. He wrote Decennalia, and in the opinion of Gyraldlus the Argonautics, which are at present extant under the name of Orpheus, with other writings called Orphical, simply which co-ordinate to Cicero some ascribe to Cecrops the Pythagorean. But the last Orpheus [the fifth] was Camarinseus, a almost fantabulous versifier; and the same, according to Gyraldus, whose descent into Hades is so universally known."^[31]

Writings [edit]

On the writings of Orpheus, Freeman, in the 1946 edition of The Pre- Socratic Philosophers pp. 4–8, writes:^[32]

"In the fifth and fourth centuries BC, at that place existed a drove of hexametric poems known as Orphic, which were the accepted authorization of those who followed the Orphic way of life, and were by them attributed to Orpheus himself. Plato several times quotes lines from this collection; he refers in the Republic to a "mass of books of Musaeus and Orpheus", and in the Laws to the hymns of Thamyris and Orpheus, while in the Ion he groups Orpheus with Musaeus and Homer as the source of inspiration of epic poets and elocutionists. Euripides in the Hippolytus makes Theseus speak of the "turgid outpourings of many treatises", which accept led his son to follow Orpheus and prefer the Bacchic religion. Alexis, the fourth century comic poet, depicting Linus offering a choice of books to Heracles, mentions "Orpheus, Hesiod, tragedies, Choerilus, Homer, Epicharmus". Aristotle did not believe that the poems were by Orpheus; he speaks of the "so-called Orphic epic", and Philoponus (seventh century AD) commenting on this expression, says that in the De Philosophia (now lost) Aristotle direct stated his opinion that the poems were non by Orpheus. Philoponus adds his ain view that the doctrines were put into epic poetry past Onomacritus. Aristotle when quoting the Orphic cosmological doctrines attributes them to "the theologoi", "the ancient poets", "those who first theorized virtually the gods".

Nothing is known of any ancient Orphic writings except a reference in the Alcestis of Euripides to certain Thracian tablets which "the phonation of Orpheus had inscribed" with pharmaceutical lore. The Scholiast, commenting on the passage, says that there be on Mt. Haemus sure writings of Orpheus on tablets. There is also a reference, not mentioning Orpheus by name, in the pseudo-Platonic Axiochus, where it is said that the fate of the soul in Hades is described on certain statuary tablets which two seers had brought to Delos from the land of the Hyperboreans. This is the simply evidence for any ancient Orphic writings. Aelian (2nd century AD) gave the principal reason against believing in them: at the time when Orpheus is said to have lived, the Thracians knew aught about writing.

It came therefore to be believed that Orpheus taught, but left no writings, and that the epic poetry attributed to him was written in the sixth century BC by Onomacritus. Onomacritus was banished from Athens by Hipparchus for inserting something of his own into an oracle of Musaeus when entrusted with the editing of his poems. Information technology may accept been Aristotle who first suggested, in the lost De Philosophia, that Onomacritus also wrote the then-called Orphic epic poems. By the time when the Orphic writings began to exist freely quoted past Christian and Neo-Platonist writers, the theory of the authorship of Onomacritus was accepted by many.

It is believed, however, that the Orphic literature current in the time of the Neo-Platonists (third century AD), and quoted by them as the authority for Orphic doctrines, was a collection of writings of dissimilar periods and varying outlook, something like that of the Bible. The earliest of these were composed in the sixth century by Onomacritus from 18-carat Orphic tradition; the latest which accept survived, namely the Voyage of the Argonauts, and the Hymns to diverse deities, cannot accept been put together in their present form until the beginning of the Christian era, and are probably to exist dated some fourth dimension betwixt the second and 4th centuries Advertising.

The Neo-Platonists quote the Orphic poems in their defence against Christianity, considering Plato used poems which he believed to exist Orphic. It is believed that in the collection of writings which they used there were several versions, each of which gave a slightly different business relationship of the origin of the universe, of gods and men, and mayhap of the right way of life, with the rewards and punishments fastened thereto. Three principal versions are recognized by modernistic scholars; all iii are mentioned past the Neo-Platonist Damascius (fifth to 6th centuries Advert).

These are:

1. Rhapsodiae, epic lays, said by Damascius to requite the usual Orphic theology. These are mentioned as well in Suidas' listing, as "sacred discourses in twenty-four lays", though he attributes this work to Theognetus the Thessalian (unknown) or Cercops the Pythagorean. This is now referred to as the Rhapsodic Theogony. It is the version ordinarily quoted by ancient government, just was not the one used by Plato, and is therefore some-times idea to have been composed after he wrote; this question cannot at nowadays exist decided.
2. An Orphic Theogony given by Aristotle'due south pupil Eudemus.
3. An Orphic Theogony "co-ordinate to Hieronymus and Hellanicus". Other versions were: a Theogony put into the oral cavity of Orpheus by Apollonius Rhodius in his Argonautica an Orphic Theogony quoted by Alexander of Aphrodisias; and a Theogony in Cloudless of Rome, not specified as Orphic, only belonging to the same school of thought.

A long list of Orphic works is given in Suidas (10th century AD); just near of these are there attributed to other authors.

They are:

1. Triagmoi, attributed to the tragic poet Ion, in which at that place was said to be a chapter called Sacred Vestments, or Cosmic Invocations. The title Triagmoi evidently referred to "the Orphic tripod of 3 elements, earth, h2o, burn", referred to by Ausonius and Galen; the latter said that this doctrine was given by Onomacritus in his Orphic poems.
2. The Sacred Discourses, already discussed, usually identified with the Rhapsodiae.
3. Oracles and Rites, attributed to Onomacritus.
4. Aids to Salvation, ascribed to Timocles of Syracuse or Persinus of Miletus; both the work and these writers are otherwise unknown.
5. Mixing-bowls, ascribed to Zopyrus of Heracleia; and The Robe and The Internet, also ascribed to Zopyrus, or to Brontinus the Pythagorean. The Net referred to is the net of the body, so chosen in Orphic literature. To Brontinus was too ascribed a Physica, otherwise unknown.
6. Enthronement of the Mother, and Bacchic Rites, ascribed to Nicias of Elea, of whom nothing else is known. "Enthronement" was part of the rite of initiation practised past the Corybantes, the worshippers of Rhea or Cybele; the person to be initiated was seated on a high chair, and the celebrants danced round him in a ring. The title therefore apparently ways "the enthronement-ceremonies as practised by the worshippers of the Cracking Female parent". Connected, peradventure identical with, this was a treatise on Corybantic Rites, quoted past the late Orphic poem Argonautica.
7. A Descent into Hades, ascribed to Herodicus of Perinthus, or to Cercops the Pythagorean, or to the unknown Prodicus of Samos.
8. Other treatises were: an Astronomy or Star divination, otherwise unknown; Sacrificial Rites, doubtless giving rules for bloodless sacrifices; Divination by ways of sand, Divination past means of eggs; on Temple-building (otherwise unknown); On the girding on of Sacred Robes; and On Stones, said to contain a affiliate on the carving of precious stones entitled The Eighty Stones; a version of this work, of belatedly date, survives. Information technology treats of the properties of stones, precious and ordinary, and their uses in divination. The Orphic Hymns are also mentioned in Suidas' list, and a Theogony in 1200 verses, maybe one of those versions which differed from the Rhapsodiae. There was also an Orphic Word-volume, doubtless a glossary of the special terms used in the cult, some of which were strange because of their allegorical usage, others considering of their antiquity; this also was said to have been in poesy.

Such was the list of works finally classed as Orphic writings, though it was known in early times that many of them were the works of Pythagoreans and other writers. Herodotus said of the and then-called "Orphic and Bacchic rites" that they were actually "Egyptian and Pythagorean"; and Ion of Chios said that Pythagoras himself attributed some of his writings to Orpheus. Others, as has been said, regarded the earliest epics as the work of Onomacritus. The original Hymns were thought to have been composed past Orpheus, and written downwards, with emendations, by Musaeus. There were also other writers named Orpheus: to one, of Croton, said to be a contemporary and associate of Peisistratus, were attributed two epic poems: an Argonautica, and The Twelve-yr Cycle (probably astrological); to another, Orpheus of Camarina, an epic Descent into Hades. These namesakes are probably inventions."^[32]

Mythology [edit]

Early life [edit]

Important sites in the life and travels of Orpheus

Co-ordinate to Apollodorus^[33] and a fragment of Pindar,^[34] Orpheus'due south father was Oeagrus, a Thracian king, or, according to another version of the story, the god Apollo. His mother was (ane) the muse Calliope, (ii) her sis Polymnia,^[35] (three) a daughter of Pierus,^[36] son of Makednos or (iv) lastly of Menippe, daughter of Thamyris.^[37] According to Tzetzes, he was from Bisaltia.^[38] His birthplace and place of residence was Pimpleia^{[39] [40]} shut to the Olympus. Strabo mentions that he lived in Pimpleia.^{[26] [40]} According to the epic verse form Argonautica, Pimpleia was the location of Oeagrus's and Calliope's wedding.^[41] While living with his mother and her eight cute sisters in Parnassus, he met Apollo, who was courtship the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo, equally the god of music, gave Orpheus a golden lyre and taught him to play information technology.^[42] Orpheus's mother taught him to make verses for singing. He is as well said to take studied in Egypt.^[43]

Orpheus is said to have established the worship of Hecate in Aegina.^[44] In Laconia Orpheus is said to have brought the worship of Demeter Chthonia^[45] and that of the Κόρες Σωτείρας ( Kóres Sōteíras ; 'Saviour Maidens').^{[ clarification needed ] [46]} Besides in Taygetos a wooden image of Orpheus was said to have been kept past Pelasgians in the sanctuary of the Eleusinian Demeter.^[47]

According to Diodorus Siculus, Musaeus of Athens was the son of Orpheus.^[48]

Take a chance equally an Argonaut [edit]

The Argonautica ( Ἀργοναυτικά ) is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. Orpheus took office in this adventure and used his skills to help his companions. Chiron told Jason that without the aid of Orpheus, the Argonauts would never be able to pass the Sirens—the aforementioned Sirens encountered by Odysseus in Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. The Sirens lived on iii modest, rocky islands called Sirenum scopuli and sang cute songs that enticed sailors to come to them, which resulted in the crashing of their ships into the islands. When Orpheus heard their voices, he drew his lyre and played music that was louder and more than beautiful, drowning out the Sirens' bewitching songs. Co-ordinate to tertiary century BC Hellenistic elegiac poet Phanocles, Orpheus loved the immature Argonaut Calais, "the son of Boreas, with all his heart, and went often in shaded groves still singing of his desire, nor was his heart at rest. Only always, sleepless cares wasted his spirits equally he looked at fresh Calais."^{[49] [50]}

Death of Eurydice [edit]

The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (sometimes referred to as Euridice and also known every bit Argiope). While walking among her people, the Cicones, in tall grass at her hymeneals, Eurydice was set upon by a satyr. In her efforts to escape the satyr, Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and suffered a fatal seize with teeth on her heel. Her body was discovered by Orpheus who, overcome with grief, played such deplorable and mournful songs that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld. His music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to globe on i condition: he should walk in front of her and non look dorsum until they both had reached the upper world. Orpheus prepare off with Eurydice following; however, every bit presently as he had reached the upper world, he immediately turned to look at her, forgetting in his eagerness that both of them needed to be in the upper earth for the status to be met. As Eurydice had not withal crossed into the upper earth, she vanished for the 2nd time, this fourth dimension forever.

The story in this form belongs to the time of Virgil, who first introduces the name of Aristaeus (by the time of Virgil's Georgics, the myth has Aristaeus chasing Eurydice when she was bitten by a serpent) and the tragic event.^[51] Other aboriginal writers, however, speak of Orpheus'south visit to the underworld in a more negative light; according to Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium,^[52] the infernal gods just "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. In fact, Plato's representation of Orpheus is that of a coward, as instead of choosing to die in order to exist with the 1 he loved, he instead mocked the gods past trying to get to Hades to bring her dorsum alive. Since his love was not "true"—he did not want to die for love—he was actually punished by the gods, outset by giving him only the apparition of his one-time wife in the underworld, and then by being killed by women. In Ovid'due south account, however, Eurydice's death by a snake bite is incurred while she was dancing with naiads on her wedding day.

Virgil wrote in his verse form that Dryads wept from Epirus and Hebrus upwards to the country of the Getae (north east Danube valley) and even describes him wandering into Hyperborea and Tanais (ancient Greek urban center in the Don river delta)^[53] due to his grief.

The story of Eurydice may actually be a late addition to the Orpheus myths. In particular, the proper noun Eurudike ("she whose justice extends widely") recalls cult-titles attached to Persephone. Co-ordinate to the theories of poet Robert Graves, the myth may have been derived from some other Orpheus legend, in which he travels to Tartarus and charms the goddess Hecate.^[54]

The myth theme of not looking dorsum, an essential precaution in Jason'southward raising of chthonic Brimo Hekate under Medea's guidance,^[55] is reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. More directly, the story of Orpheus is similar to the ancient Greek tales of Persephone captured by Hades and like stories of Adonis captive in the underworld. Nevertheless, the developed form of the Orpheus myth was entwined with the Orphic mystery cults and, after in Rome, with the development of Mithraism and the cult of Sol Invictus.

Death [edit]

Thracian Girl Carrying the Head of Orpheus on His Lyre (1865) by Gustave Moreau

According to a Late Antique summary of Aeschylus' lost play Bassarids, Orpheus, towards the end of his life, disdained the worship of all gods except the sun, whom he called Apollo. One early on morning he went to the oracle of Dionysus at Mount Pangaion^[56] to salute his god at dawn, but was ripped to shreds by Thracian Maenads for not honoring his previous patron (Dionysus) and was buried in Pieria.^{[22] [57]} Here his expiry is coordinating with that of Pentheus, who was also torn to pieces by Maenads; and it has been speculated that the Orphic mystery cult regarded Orpheus as a parallel figure to or even an incarnation of Dionysus.^[58] Both fabricated similar journeys into Hades, and Dionysus-Zagreus suffered an identical death.^[59] Pausanias writes that Orpheus was buried in Dion and that he met his death at that place.^[sixty] He writes that the river Helicon sank underground when the women that killed Orpheus tried to wash off their blood-stained easily in its waters.^[61] Other legends merits that Orpheus became a follower of Dionysus and spread his cult across the land. In this version of the legend, it is said that Orpheus was torn to shreds by the women of Thrace for his inattention.^[62]

Ovid recounts that Orpheus ...

had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his affection to immature boys and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering this side of manhood.

Feeling spurned past Orpheus for taking only male person lovers (eromenoi), the Ciconian women, followers of Dionysus,^[63] first threw sticks and stones at him every bit he played, but his music was and so beautiful even the rocks and branches refused to hit him. Enraged, the women tore him to pieces during the frenzy of their Bacchic orgies.^[64] In Albrecht Dürer'southward drawing of Orpheus'south expiry, based on an original, now lost, by Andrea Mantegna, a ribbon high in the tree above him is lettered Orfeus der erst puseran ("Orpheus, the first pederast").^[65]

Death of Orpheus (1494) by Dürer

His head and lyre, withal singing mournful songs, floated down the River Hebrus into the sea, later which the winds and waves carried them to the island of Lesbos,^[66] at the metropolis of Methymna; at that place, the inhabitants cached his head and a shrine was built in his honour near Antissa;^[67] in that location his oracle prophesied, until information technology was silenced by Apollo.^[68] In addition to the people of Lesbos, Greeks from Ionia and Aetolia consulted the oracle, and his reputation spread as far as Babylon.^[69]

Cave of Orpheus's oracle in Antissa, Lesbos

Orpheus'due south lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses, and was placed among the stars. The Muses also gathered upwardly the fragments of his body and cached them at Leibethra^[lxx] below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. Later the river Sys flooded^[71] Leibethra, the Macedonians took his bones to Dion. Orpheus's soul returned to the underworld, to the fields of the Blest, where he was reunited at last with his beloved Eurydice.

Another fable places his tomb at Dion,^[56] near Pydna in Macedon. In another version of the myth, Orpheus travels to Aornum in Thesprotia, Epirus to an old oracle for the expressionless. In the terminate Orpheus commits suicide from his grief unable to find Eurydice.^[72]

"Others said that he was the victim of a thunderbolt."^[73]

Orphic poems and rites [edit]

A number of Greek religious poems in hexameters were attributed to Orpheus, equally they were to like phenomenon-working figures, like Bakis, Musaeus, Abaris, Aristeas, Epimenides, and the Sibyl. Of this vast literature, only two works survived whole: the Orphic Hymns , a set of 87 poems, maybe composed at some point in the 2nd or third century, and the epic Orphic Argonautica, equanimous somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries. Before Orphic literature, which may date back as far equally the 6th century BC, survives only in papyrus fragments or in quotations. Some of the earliest fragments may take been composed by Onomacritus.^[74]

In add-on to serving as a storehouse of mythological data along the lines of Hesiod'southward Theogony, Orphic poesy was recited in mystery-rites and purification rituals. Plato in item tells of a class of vagrant beggar-priests who would become most offering purifications to the rich, a clatter of books past Orpheus and Musaeus in tow.^[75] Those who were especially devoted to these rituals and poems often practiced vegetarianism and abstention from sex, and refrained from eating eggs and beans—which came to be known as the Orphikos bios, or "Orphic fashion of life".^[76]

The Derveni papyrus, found in Derveni, Macedonia (Hellenic republic) in 1962, contains a philosophical treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem in hexameters, a theogony concerning the nativity of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras, written in the second half of the fifth century BC. Fragments of the poem are quoted making it "the most important new slice of bear witness about Greek philosophy and religion to come to calorie-free since the Renaissance".^[77] The papyrus dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making information technology Europe'south oldest surviving manuscript.

The historian William Mitford wrote in 1784 that the very primeval form of a higher and more cohesive ancient Greek organized religion was manifest in the Orphic poems.^[78] Westward. M. C. Guthrie wrote that Orpheus was the founder of mystery religions and the first to reveal to men the meanings of the initiation rites.^[79]

Post-Classical interpretations [edit]

Orpheus charming the beasts. Engraving by Regius for Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 10, 143

Classical music [edit]

The Orpheus motif has permeated Western culture and has been used as a theme in all fine art forms. Early examples include the Breton lai Sir Orfeo from the early 13th century and musical interpretations like Jacopo Peri's Euridice (1600, though titled with his married woman's proper noun, the libretto is based entirely upon books X and XI of Ovid's Metamorphoses and therefore Orpheus's viewpoint is predominant).

Subsequent operatic interpretations include:

• Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607)
• Luigi Rossi'south Orfeo (1647)
• Marc-Antoine Charpentier'south La descente d'Orphée aux enfers H.488 (1686). Charpentier as well composed a cantata, Orphée descendant aux enfers H.471, (1683)
• Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (1762)
• Joseph Haydn's last opera L'anima del filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice (1791)
• Franz Liszt's symphonic poem Orpheus (1854)
• Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orphée aux Enfers (1858)
• Igor Stravinsky's ballet Orpheus (1948)
• David Maslanka's work for ii bassoons and marimba Orpheus (1977)
• Two operas by Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus (1973–1984) and The Corridor (2009)
• The Bulgarian Rousse State Opera commissioned and performed Orpheus: A Masque by John Robertson (2015).^[fourscore]

Literature [edit]

Rainer Maria Rilke'southward Sonnets to Orpheus (1922) are based on the Orpheus myth. Poul Anderson'due south Hugo Award-winning novelette "Goat Vocal", published in 1972, is a retelling of the story of Orpheus in a science fiction setting. Some feminist interpretations of the myth give Eurydice greater weight. Margaret Atwood'south Orpheus and Eurydice Cycle (1976–86) deals with the myth, and gives Eurydice a more than prominent voice. Sarah Ruhl'south Eurydice likewise presents the story of Orpheus's descent to the underworld from Eurydice's perspective. Ruhl removes Orpheus from the center of the story past pairing their romantic dear with the paternal love of Eurydice's expressionless father.^[81] David Almond's 2014 novel, A Song for Ella Gray, was inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 2015.^[82] The 2014 novel Orfeo by Richard Powers is based on Orpheus.^{[ citation needed ] [ clarification needed ]} The 2020 novel Orpheus' Temptation ^[83] by Stefan Calin is based on an allegory betwixt the main grapheme and Orpheus'south descent into the Underworld and subsequent temptation to expect at Eurydice.

Dino Buzzati adjusted the Orpheus motif in his graphic novel Poem Strip (1969). Neil Gaiman depicts his version of Orpheus in The Sandman comics serial (1989–2015). Gaiman's Orpheus is the son of Oneiros (the Dream Lord Morpheus) and the muse Calliope.^[84]

The poet Gabriele Tinti has composed a series of poems inspired past the myth of Orpheus, read by Robert Davi at the J. Paul Getty Museum^[85]

Film and stage [edit]

Vinicius de Moraes' play Orfeu da Conceição (1956), later adjusted by Marcel Camus in the 1959 film Blackness Orpheus, tells the story in the mod context of a favela in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. Jean Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy – The Blood of a Poet (1930), Orpheus (1950) and Attestation of Orpheus (1959) – was filmed over thirty years, and is based in many means on the story. Philip Glass adapted the second moving-picture show into the chamber opera Orphée (1991), part of an homage triptych to Cocteau. Nikos Nikolaidis' 1975 picture Evrydiki BA 2O37 is an innovative perspective on the classic Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. Baz Luhrmann's 2001 jukebox musical film Moulin Rouge! is also inspired past the myth. Anaïs Mitchell's 2010 folk opera musical Hadestown retells the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice with a soundtrack inspired by American blues and jazz, portraying Hades as the brutal work-boss of an surreptitious mining city. Mitchell, together with director Rachel Chavkin, later adjusted her album into a multiple Tony award-winning stage musical. Sarah Ruhl'southward play Eurydice examines the myth from the perspective of Eurydice, and the myth features as 1 of the tales told in Mary Zimmerman's play Metamorphoses.

See also [edit]

• Aornum
• Argonautica Orphica
• Katabasis
• Leibethra
• List of Orphean operas
• Pierian Jump
• Pimpleia
• Sir Orfeo
• 3361 Orpheus

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Cartwright, Mark (2020). "Orpheus". Globe History Encyclopedia . Retrieved 2021-07-26 . {{cite spider web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
2. ^ Orpheus'south Thracian origin, already maintained past Strabo and Plutarch, has been adopted again by Due east. Rohde (Psyche), by Eastward. Mass (Orpheus), and by P. Perdrizet (Cultes et mythes du Pangée). For more see: Mircea Eliade (2011) History of Religious Ideas, Book 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity, translated by Willard R. Trask, University of Chicago Printing, p. 483, ISBN 022602735X.
3. ^ Anthi Chrysanthou, Defining Orphism: The Beliefs, the ›teletae‹ and the Writings, (2020) Book 94 of Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 3110678454: Orpheus's place of origin was Thrace and co-ordinate to almost aboriginal sources he was the son of Oeagrus and muse Kalliope.
4. ^ Androtion, an Attidographer writing in the fourth century BCE, focused precisely on Orpheus's Thracian origin, and the well-known illiteracy of his people...For more see: Nora Goldschmidt, Barbara Graziosi as ed., (2018) Tombs of the Ancient Poets: Between Literary Reception and Material Civilization, Oxford Academy Press, p. 182, ISBN 0192561030.
5. ^ Geoffrey Miles, Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Disquisitional Album (Routledge, 1999), p. 54.
6. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, Corinth, 2.30.2
7. ^ Cf. "Ὀρφανός" in: Etymological Lexicon of Greek, ed. Robert Due south. P. Beekes (Ph. D. 1969). Start published online October 2010. Consulted online on 03/05/2018.
8. ^ Cobb, Noel. Archetypal Imagination, Hudson, New York: Lindisfarne Printing, p. 240. ISBN 0-940262-47-9
9. ^ Freiert, William K. (1991), Pozzi, Dora Carlisky; Wickersham, John Chiliad. (eds.), "Orpheus: A Fugue on the Polis", Myth and the Polis, Cornell Academy Press: 46, ISBN0-8014-2473-nine
10. ^ Miles, Geoffrey. Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology, London: Routledge, 1999, p. 57. ISBN 0-415-14755-seven
11. ^ ^{a b c d} Freeman, Kathleen (1946). The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. ane.
12. ^ Ibycus, Fragments 17 (Diehl); M. Owen Lee, Virgil every bit Orpheus: A Study of the Georgics State University of New York Press, Albany (1996), p. three.
13. ^ Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Harvard University Printing (1948), p. ane.
14. ^ Aristotle (1952). W. D. Ross; John Alexander Smith (eds.). The Works of Aristotle. Vol. XII–Fragments. Oxford: Clarendon Printing. p. 80.
15. ^ Pindar, Pythian Odes, 4.176 [1]
16. ^ Pindar fragment 126.9.
17. ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 1.3.two, Argonautica 1.23, and the Orphic Hymn 24.12.
18. ^ "Attributed to the Painter of London East 497: Bong-krater (24.97.thirty) – Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History – The Metropolitan Museum of Art". metmuseum.org.
19. ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 1.three.two; Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis, 1212 and The Bacchae, 562; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11: "with his songs, Orpheus, the bard of Thrace, allured the copse, the barbarous animals, and even the insensate rocks, to follow him>"
20. ^ Others to brave the nekyia were Odysseus, Theseus and Heracles; Perseus also overcame Medusa in a chthonic setting.
21. ^ A single literary epitaph, attributed to the sophist Alcidamas, credits Orpheus with the invention of writing. Meet Ivan Mortimer Linforth, "Two Notes on the Legend of Orpheus", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 62, (1931):5–17).
22. ^ ^{a b} Apollodorus (Pseudo Apollodorus), Library and Image, 1.3.2. "Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces past the Maenads he is cached in Pieria."
23. ^ Apollonius, Argonautica, passim.
24. ^ Apollodorus, Library and Paradigm, 2.4.nine, This Linus was a brother of Orpheus; he came to Thebes and became a Theban.
25. ^ William Godwin (1876). "Lives of the Necromancers". p. 44.
26. ^ ^{a b} Strabo, Geography, Book 7, Chapter 7: "At the base of Olympus is a city Dium. And it has a hamlet near by, Pimpleia. Here lived Orpheus, the Ciconian, it is said — a wizard who at first collected money from his music, together with his soothsaying and his celebration of the orgies continued with the mystic initiatory rites, but shortly subsequently thought himself worthy of still greater things and procured for himself a throng of followers and ability. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined confronting him and killed him. And almost here, besides, is Leibethra."
27. ^ Gregory Nagy, Primitive Catamenia (Greek Literature, Volume ii), ISBN 0-8153-3683-7, p. 46.
28. ^ Index in Eustathii commentarios in Homeri Iliadem et Odysseam past Matthaeus Devarius, p. viii.
29. ^ Pausanias, The Description of Hellenic republic, half dozen.20.eighteen: "A man of Arab republic of egypt said that Pelops received something from Amphion the Theban and buried it where is what they call Taraxippus, calculation that it was the buried thing which frightened the mares of Oenomaus, likewise as those of every charioteer since. This Egyptian thought that Amphion and the Thracian Orpheus were clever magicians, and that it was through their enchantments that the beasts came to Orpheus, and the stones came to Amphion for the building of the wall. The almost probable of the stories in my opinion makes Taraxippus a surname of Horse Poseidon."
30. ^ ^{a b c} Smith, William (1870). Dictionary of Greek And Roman Biography And Mythology. Vol. three. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. p. 60. ark:/13960/t23b60t0r.
31. ^ Taylor, Thomas (1821) [1787]. The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus. London: Cheswick: C. Whittingham College House. pp. li–lii. ark:/13960/t2v47bg2h.
32. ^ ^{a b} Freeman, Kathleen (1946). The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. pp. 4–8. ark:/13960/t9z088h5f.
33. ^ Son of Oeagrus or Apollo and Calliope: Apollodorus, 1.iii.2.
34. ^ Pindar, frag. 126, line 9, noted in Kerényi 1959: 280.
35. ^ Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica ane.23 with Asclepiades equally the authority
36. ^ In Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio nine.30.iv, the writer claimed that "... In that location are many untruths believed by the Greeks, one of which is that Orpheus was a son of the Muse Calliope, and non of the girl of Pierus."
37. ^ Tzetzes, Chiliades 1.12 line 306
38. ^ John Tzetzes. Chiliades, i.12 line 305
39. ^ William Keith Guthrie and 50. Alderlink, Orpheus and Greek Religion (Mythos Books), 1993, ISBN 0-691-02499-5, p. 61 f.: "[…] is a urban center Dion. Near it is a hamlet called Pimpleia. It was there they say that Orpheus the Kikonian lived."
40. ^ ^{a b} Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Mythos Books), 1991, ISBN 0-691-01514-7, p. 469: "[…] nigh the city of Dium is a village chosen Pimpleia where Orpheus lived."
41. ^ The Argonautica, book I (ll. 23–34), "First so let us name Orpheus whom once Calliope bare, it is said, wedded to Thracian Oeagrus, about the Pimpleian height."
42. ^ Hoopes And Evslin, The Greek Gods, ISBN 0-590-44110-8, ISBN 0-590-44110-8, 1995, p. 77: "His male parent was a Thracian king; his mother the muse Calliope. For a while he lived on Parnassus with his mother and his eight beautiful aunts and at that place met Apollo who was courting the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo was taken with Orpheus, gave him his niggling aureate lyre and taught him to play. And his mother Calliope, the muse presiding over epic poetry, taught him to brand verses for singing."
43. ^ Diodorus Siculus, 4.25.2–iv.
44. ^ Pausanias, Clarification of Hellenic republic, Corinth, two.thirty.1 [2]: "Of the gods, the Aeginetans worship most Hecate, in whose honor every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thracian established among them. Within the enclosure is a temple; its wooden image is the work of Myron, and it has i face and one trunk. It was Alcamenes, in my opinion, who first made three images of Hecate attached to 1 another, a figure called past the Athenians Epipurgidia (on the Tower); it stands abreast the temple of the Wingless Victory."
45. ^ Pausanias, Description of Hellenic republic, Laconia, 3.xiv.1,[5]: "[…] but the wooden image of Thetis is guarded in cloak-and-dagger. The cult of Demeter Chthonia (of the Lower Earth) the Lacedaemonians say was handed on to them by Orpheus, but in my opinion information technology was because of the sanctuary in Hermione that the Lacedaemonians likewise began to worship Demeter Chthonia. The Spartans accept also a sanctuary of Serapis, the newest sanctuary in the urban center, and one of Zeus surnamed Olympian."
46. ^ Pausanias, Clarification of Hellenic republic, Laconia, 3.13.1: "Opposite the Olympian Aphrodite the Lacedaemonians take a temple of the Saviour Maid. Some say that it was fabricated by Orpheus the Thracian, others by Abairis when he had come from the Hyperboreans."
47. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, Laconia, iii.20.1,[5]: "Between Taletum and Euoras is a place they name Therae, where they say Leto from the Peaks of Taygetus […] is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Eleusinian. Here according to the Lacedaemonian story Heracles was hidden by Asclepius while he was being healed of a wound. In the sanctuary is a wooden image of Orpheus, a piece of work, they say, of Pelasgians."
48. ^ Diodorus Siculus, iv.25.1–2.
49. ^ Katherine Crawford (2010). The Sexual Culture of the French Renaissance. Cambridge University Press. p. 28. ISBN978-0-521-76989-i.
50. ^ John Cake Friedman (2000-05-01). Orpheus in the Center Ages. Syracuse University Printing. p. 9. ISBN978-0-8156-2825-v.
51. ^ G. Owen Lee, Virgil as Orpheus: A Study of the Georgics, Country University of New York Press, Albany (1996), p. 9.
52. ^ Symposium 179d.
53. ^ "The Georgics of Virgil: 4th Volume". www.sacred-texts.com . Retrieved 11 July 2017.
54. ^ Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, Penguin Books Ltd., London (1955), Volume 1, Chapter 28, "Orpheus", p. 115.
55. ^ Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, volume III: "Let no footfall or barking of dogs cause you to plough around, lest yous ruin everything", Medea warns Jason; after the dread rite, "The son of Aison was seized by fearfulness, just even so he did not plough round..." (Richard Hunter, translator).
56. ^ ^{a b} Orpheus and Greek Religion by William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink, ISBN 0-691-02499-v, p. 32
57. ^ Wilson, N., Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Routledge, 2013, ISBN 113678800X, p. 702: "His grave and cult vest non to Thrace just to Pierian Macedonia, northeast of Mount Olympus, a region that the Thracians had in one case inhabited
58. ^ Classical Mythology, p. 279, Mark P. O. Morford, Robert J. Lenardon.
59. ^ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, volume 88, p. 211
60. ^ Pausanias, Description of Hellenic republic, Boeotia, 9.thirty.1. The Macedonians who dwell in the commune below Mount Pieria and the urban center of Dium say that it was here that Orpheus met his terminate at the easily of the women. Going from Dium along the road to the mountain, and advancing twenty stades, you come to a pillar on the right surmounted by a stone urn, which according to the natives contains the bones of Orpheus.
61. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, Boeotia, nine.thirty.1. There is likewise a river called Helicon. Later a form of 70-five stades the stream hereupon disappears under the globe. After a gap of about twenty-two stades the water rises again, and under the proper name of Baphyra instead of Helicon flows into the body of water as a navigable river. The people of Dium say that at commencement this river flowed on land throughout its course. Simply, they go on to say, the women who killed Orpheus wished to launder off in information technology the claret-stains, and thereat the river sank underground, so equally not to lend its waters to cleanse manslaughter
62. ^ ""Orpheus" The Columbia Encyclopedia". search.credoreference.com . Retrieved 2020-09-25 .
63. ^ Patricia Jane Johnson (2008). Ovid Before Exile: Art and Penalisation in the Metamorphoses. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 103. ISBN978-0-299-22400-4. "by the Ciconian women."
64. ^ Ovid, trans. A. Southward. Kline (2000). Ovid: The Metamorphoses. Book XI.
65. ^ Heinrich Wölfflin (2013). Drawings of Albrecht Dürer. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 24–25. ISBN978-0-486-14090-two.
66. ^ Carlos Parada "His caput fell into the sea and was cast by the waves upon the island of Lesbos where the Lesbians buried it, and for having done this the Lesbians have the reputation of being skilled in music."
67. ^ Recently a cave was identified as the oracle of Orpheus nearby the modern village of Antissa; see Harissis H. V. et al. "The Spelios of Antissa; The oracle of Orpheus in Lesvos" Archaiologia kai Technes 2002; 83:68–73 (article in Greek with English language abstruse)
68. ^ Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, [2]
69. ^ William Godwin (1876). "Lives of the Necromancers". p. 46.
70. ^ The Writing of Orpheus: Greek Myth in Cultural Context by Marcele Detienne, ISBN 0-8018-6954-4, p. 161
71. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, Boeotia, nine.30.i [11] Immediately when night came the god sent heavy rain, and the river Sys (Boar), one of the torrents near Olympus, on this occasion threw down the walls of Libethra, overturning sanctuaries of gods and houses of men, and drowning the inhabitants and all the animals in the urban center. When Libethra was at present a metropolis of ruin, the Macedonians in Dium, co-ordinate to my friend of Larisa, carried the bones of Orpheus to their own country.
72. ^ Others have said that his wife died earlier him, and that for her sake he came to Aornum in Thesprotis, where of former was an oracle of the dead. He thought, they say, that the soul of Eurydice followed him, but turning circular he lost her, and committed suicide for grief. The Thracians say that such nightingales as nest on the grave of Orpheus sing more sweetly and louder than others.Pausanias, Clarification of Greece, Boeotia, 9.30.i.
73. ^ Freeman, Kathleen (1946). The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 3. ark:/13960/t9z088h5f.
74. ^ Freeman, Kathleen. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Harvard Academy Printing (1948), p. 1.
75. ^ Plato. The Republic 364c–d.
76. ^ Moore, p. 56: "the utilise of eggs and beans was forbidden, for these manufactures were associated with the worship of the dead".
77. ^ Janko, Richard (2006). Tsantsanoglou, K.; Parássoglou, M.M.; Kouremenos, T. (eds.). "The Derveni Papyrus". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Studi e testi per il 'Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci due east latini'. Florence: Olschki. 13.
78. ^ Mitford, p. 89: "But the very early inhabitants of Greece had a faith far less degenerated from original purity. To this curious and interesting fact, abundant testimonies remain. They occur in those poems, of uncertain origin and uncertain date, but unquestionably of great antiquity, which are chosen the poems of Orpheus or rather the Orphic poems [Annotation: Especially in the Hymn to Jupiter, quoted by Aristotle in the 7th chapter of his Treatise on the World]; and they are found scattered amidst the writings of the philosophers and historians." The idea of a religion "degenerated from original purity" expressed an Enlightenment idealisation of an assumed archaic land that is ane connotation of "primitivism" in the history of ideas.
79. ^ Guthrie, pp. 17–18. "Every bit founder of mystery-religions, Orpheus was first to reveal to men the meaning of the rites of initiation (teletai). We read of this in both Plato and Aristophanes (Aristophanes, Frogs, 1032; Plato, Republic, 364e, a passage which suggests that literary say-so was made to take the responsibleness for the rites)". Guthrie goes on to write well-nigh "This less worthy but certainly popular side of Orphism is represented for the states over again past the charms or incantations of Orpheus which we may as well read of every bit early as the fifth century. Our authority is Euripides. We have already noticed the 'charm on the Thracian tablets' in the Alcestis and in Cyclops ane of the lazy and frightened Satyrs, unwilling to help Odysseus in the task of driving the burning stake into the unmarried centre of the behemothic, exclaims: 'But I know a spell of Orpheus, a fine one, which volition make the brand step up of its own accord to fire this one-eyed son of Earth' (Euripides, Cyclops 646 = Kern, exam. 83)."
80. ^ Rousse State Opera. "Световна премиера на операта „Орфей" от канадския композитор Джон Робъртсън в МФ „Сцена край реката"-Русе" Archived 2016-03-02 at the Wayback Machine ("Globe Premiere of the opera "Orpheus" by Canadian composer John Robertson"). Retrieved 22 Feb 2016 (in Bulgarian).
81. ^ Isherwood, Charles (2007-06-19). "The Ability of Memory to Triumph Over Death". The New York Times.
82. ^ Guardian Staff (2015-11-19). "David Almond wins Guardian children'south fiction prize". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-11-24 .
83. ^ Beautiful Failures. Redder Blackness. 4 November 2020.
84. ^ Gaiman, Neil. The Sandman #50.
85. ^ Poem: Orpheus , retrieved 2020-11-24

Bibliography [edit]

• Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke I, iii, two; ix, xvi & 25;
• Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica I, 23–34; IV, 891–909.
• Bernabé, Albertus (ed.), Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia et fragmenta. Poetae Epici Graeci. Pars II. Fasc. 1. Bibliotheca Teubneriana, München/Leipzig: K.Thousand. Saur, 2004. ISBN 3-598-71707-5. review of this volume
• Guthrie, William Keith Chambers, Orpheus and Greek Faith: a Study of the Orphic Motion, 1935.
• Kerenyi, Karl (1959). The Heroes of the Greeks. New York/London: Thames and Hudson.
• Mitford, William, The History of Greece, 1784. Cf. v.1, Chapter Two, Religion of the Early Greeks.
• Moore, Clifford H., Religious Thought of the Greeks, 1916. Kessinger Publishing (Apr 2003). ISBN 978-0-7661-5130-seven
• Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, Orpheus, a sonnet nigh his trip to the underworld.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses X, i–105; XI, 1–66;
• Christoph Riedweg, "Orfeo", in: S. Settis (a cura di), I Greci: Storia Cultura Arte Società, volume 2, 1, Turin 1996, 1251–1280.
• Christoph Riedweg, "Orpheus oder die Magie der musiké. Antike Variationen eines einflussreichen Mythos", in: Th. Fuhrer / P. Michel / P. Stotz (Hgg.), Geschichten und ihre Geschichte, Basel 2004, 37–66.
• Rohde, Erwin, Psyche, 1925. cf. Chapter 10, The Orphics.
• Segal, Charles (1989). Orpheus : The Myth of the Poet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Printing. ISBN0-8018-3708-1.
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Orpheus"
• Taylor, Thomas [translator], The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus, 1896.
• Due west, Martin 50., The Orphic Poems, 1983. In that location is a sub-thesis in this piece of work that early Greek religion was heavily influenced past Key Asian shamanistic practices. One major point of contact was the ancient Crimean city of Olbia.
• Wise, R. Todd, A Neocomparative Exam of the Orpheus Myth Every bit Found in the Native American and European Traditions, 1998. UMI. The thesis explores Orpheus equally a single mythic structure present in traditions that extend from artifact to contemporary times and across cultural contexts.
• Wroe, Ann, Orpheus: The Song of Life, The Overlook Press, New York, 2012.

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Orpheus.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Orpheus

• Greek Mythology Link, Orpheus
• Theoi Projection: online text: The Orphic Hymns translated by Thomas Taylor
• The Life and Theology of Orpheus by Thomas Taylor, including several Orphic Hymns and their accompanying notes past Taylor
• Orphica in English and Greek (select resource)
• Leibethra – The Tomb of Orpheus (in Greek)
• Warburg Plant Iconographic Database (ca. 400 images of Orpheus) Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Automobile
• Greek Myth Comix: The Story of Orpheus A detailed comic-strip retelling of Orpheus by Greek Myth Comix
• Orphicorum fragmenta, Otto Kern (ed.), Berolini apud Weidmannos, 1922.
• Freese, John Henry (1911). "Orpheus". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 327–329.

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